


Stargazing

by Elysya



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Enemies to Friends to Lovers, Gen, Grumpy baby, M/M, Mutual Pining, Pining, Slow Burn, bom!au, except the enemies part is one sided, keith is not that happy at first, krolia raised keith, male pronouns for pidge, season one rewrite, shiro joins the bom
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-03-30
Updated: 2019-04-14
Packaged: 2019-12-26 20:23:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 20,851
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18289577
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Elysya/pseuds/Elysya
Summary: The Kerberos Mission was supposed to be the greatest expedition in human history, but something went incredibly wrong and the team was declared lost in action. Shiro got separated from his colleagues, destined to live his life fighting as the Champion to entertain the Galras, losing his will to live each time he was sent back to his filthy prison cell; he was almost ready to give it all up until one day a mysterious soldier named Keith infiltrated the cruiser where Shiro was kept, giving him a second chance and the possibility to look for his crew.





	1. I - Introductions

The cell was small, it barely contained him, and it was filthy with substances he didn’t want to identify. If he stuck to the far corner of the room, he could hide himself from seeing the other prisoners who watched him with swift eyes and a whisper on their lips.

They were all afraid of the Champion, of what he could do with the arm Haggar had gifted him with and the strength he possessed, so brutal no enemy stood his ground.

Shiro sighed, wondering how many days had passed. He couldn’t exactly count time, so far out in space; he didn’t even have a window looking outside so he could watch the stars longingly from the distance.

The rest of his life stretched in front of him as an infinite whirl of uneventful moments where he would either fall prey to sleep and exhaustion or force himself to the last of his remaining strength to fight against yet another alien who didn’t deserve to be held captive.

He didn’t have time to force himself into dreamless hours of sleep, though, because suddenly one of the guards who took care of them got called away and Shiro’s attention was caught by the events taking place in front of him.

If he listened closely enough, he could hear an alarm going off in the rest of the ship, voices screaming and sounds of clashing metal made him think of a mutiny; he dispelled the idea almost immediately when he remembered how much Zakon had implanted his control in his general’s minds.

No one would ever consider going against their Emperor, so it had to be someone coming from the inside.

He finally had the chance to escape, or die trying. Both options seemed far better than wasting the rest of his life swirling in guilt and punishing himself inside a rotten cage, kept under surveillance lie a wild animal. 

He moved so he could look outside the bars and scan the hallway; he almost jumped out of his skin when one of the doors that lead to the rest of the ship got hit by a laser beam so violent it formed a giant hole right in the center, giving him a window into the commotion.

Galra soldiers were fighting against what was clearly a group of intruders, dressed in thigh black and blue suits that covered everything from their toes to their face. It looked like they were giving the Galras a run for their money, too.

One of the intruders stopped right in front of the missing door, they scanned the hall and said something Shiro couldn’t understand form so far away, then they came closer the the cells and started opening them one by one.

A tiny flicker of faith sparked in Shiro’s chest, and he let out a silent laugh. 

Once they reached his cell, the intruder stepped back and looked at him for a moment, before shaking their head and working open Shiro’s cell with a neat movement of his blade, taking off the lock so the door opened aimlessly, clanking gently against the opposite wall.

“Wait,” Shiro urged, his voice rough from disuse. He didn’t even know if his savior could understand him, but he tried anyway. “I can help.” He showed his arm as proof, making it glow a faint purple, just at the tips of his fingers.

The other looked at Shiro, then shook their head. “You can’t fight them, you’d be dead in minutes.”

“At least I can try.”

The intruder was slightly smaller than Shiro in size, but when they came closer and pointed a finger at his chest, they were threatening anyway. Even through a mask that covered their whole face and two purple light bulbs as their eyes, Shiro felt like he was being scolded.

“It’s my rescue mission now, I won’t let anyone get killed.” They stopped, turned around and said, “I found prisoners, extraction team at my location asap. We need to evacuate.” 

He spoke to someone on the other end of a communication system Shiro couldn’t see but was close on the ship, because soon enough a handful of intruders made their way over to them and helped the tired prisoners walk out of their cell.

In a few minutes, every Galra in the ship was dead and the intruders loomed over their bodies, careful that no one would wake up and attack again.

One of the aliens who was helping them pressed a button on their neck and the mask fell off, revealing sharp, feline features, yellow eyes and purple fur.

They all gasped in surprise, the hope that had built around the prisoners quickly dissipated when they realized they were being freed from one Galra prison only to be thrown in a new one.

“Don’t worry,” the Galran assured, “I know it may sound odd but we are not the enemy.”

One of the prisoners stepped up, he blinked his three eyes and yelled, “Yeah and why should we trust you?”

Shiro was at the very end of the crowd, laying back to avoid being watched from all the aliens who wanted nothing more than to stay away from him, which gave him the opportunity to try and figure out the whole situation better from a safe distance.

The Galran puffed his chest, “Because if I were a Glara like the others I would have already shot you for your misbehaving.” 

The prisoner shut his mouth, considering the affirmation. “Fair enough, but I won’t come with you.”

“Suit yourself,” the smaller soldier that had freed them said, walking up to the much taller Galran. “Stay in this ship and burn with it when we blow it off.” They made a quick work of getting rid of their masks, and Shiro was more than surprised to see a common human face looking back at him.

Now he understood why he was shorter than the others: Galran were taller than the average human being, even Shiro paled in comparison to a teenage Galra. The only sign that indicated the man was a Galran soldier was the blade tied around his belt which radiated purple magic not entirely different from the one that lit up Shiro’s arm.

“My soldier is right, you don’t have many options.”

Most of the soldiers were taking off their masks, now that it was safe, so he could see that all of them were Galran or had some features that suggest a Galra lineage, which made their suits and the reason why they had turned against a ship of their own even more strange to Shiro’s eyes.

He had never seen Galras working with other species, or fighting against the Empire, but then again there were many things Shiro had never seen.

“As I was saying, we will escort you to one of our ships and you’ll have the liberty of showering, eating and resting there, while one of our team flies you to your home planets.”

“What if our planets are taken over by the Galra?” a small voice asks, in the middle of the crowd.

“Then you’ll choose whether to return or be taken somewhere else, we only want you to be free.”

Chatter spread throughout the hall, but the Galran shut them up quickly by cleaning his throat loudly. 

“Now, follow him to the ship’s main launch base, where our doctors will take you credentials and help you with any health issue you may have,” he instructed, putting one hand on the smaller soldier’s shoulder.

Two queues was already formed when they reached the main deck, Galra soldiers wearing similar dark suits, pads in hand, were talking to the newly freed prisoners one by one in a neat, organized fashion. For the first time Shiro realized the aliens in his sector weren’t the only ones trapped inside the ship: there were all sorts of people and he could only imagine what their employment had been. 

The corpses belonging to the Empire’s officers had disappeared in an incredibly short time, the ship looked less like hell and more like a normal cruiser; it helped morale to see a clean living space after so long. Even if they were uncertain of their fates, they felt a little bit better only by breathing relatively fresh air. 

They were separated in two main groups and told to put themselves in line, Shiro obeyed, glad to leave those who had seen him do horrible things during the course of his time in jail: even if the people next to him whispered about the Champion, none of them had seen him in person so he could pretend - for a while - that they were talking about someone else.

For a lack of anything better to do, he let his gaze wander around, marveling at the different life forms in front of him now that he had the chance to admire them without pressure or fear etched into his bones. Some of them were young, in good shape despite the long captivity, some were too old or incapable of standing up on their own, so the soldiers helped them with a gentle hand and a smile.

For his part, Shiro felt tired and hungry once the adrenaline and desperation had left space to the smallest glimpse of hope, but he was not scared of what would happen next, instead he felt a peak of curiosity growing inside his stomach, pushing him forward and preventing him from falling down on his knees.

Ever so slowly he found himself incredibly close to the end of the line, listening with a careful ear as the Galran at the head asked questions to the tiny alien in front of him so he could prepare for his own turn.

The soldier appointed to Shiro’s queue was an average-sized female Galra with a pointed chin and smooth purple skin, her hair hung in a straight ponytail and Shiro thought he saw it changed color around the nape of her neck. She stood straight, more than all the officers he had already seen, watching him with a hint of something Shiro couldn’t quite read, right behind her yellow eyes.

Shiro took a good look at her ensemble made of blue clothes that looked far from practical in a war, and yet were stained of blood of others; they were deep blue and finely made, with black details. She looked like someone important, not a simple soldier. 

“Full name,” she asked in a flat tone that made Shiro believe he had imagined the interest lingering on her face.

“Takashi Shirogane,” he answered.

“Planet of provenance.”

“Earth, solar system -- uhm, Milky Way?” he tried.

She raised her eyes from the pad where she was putting down his credentials, and scoffed unimpressed. “I know where Earth is.”

Shiro blushed slightly, embarrassed. He gulped on air, making his dry throat itch.

“Get on the ship and we’ll get you home safely as soon as possible.” She gestured to the cruiser behind her, where another soldier was waiting for them and handling clean clothes to the ones who reached him.

The work they put into helping all of them was outstanding, and Shiro felt he couldn’t help himself when he called the Galran’s attention back by cleaning his harsh throat and trying to use the best approximation of his official tone when he said, “Actually, ma’am, I don’t want to go back to Earth.”

The most absurd of ideas had planted itself in his mind.

She blinked twice, touched something on her pad and questioned, “Where to, then?”

Shiro took a deep breath, he wet his lips as best he could even despite the visible dehydration. “I was hoping I could join your ranks.”

The Glaran scoffed, she put the pad aside, regarding him with a curve of to her mouth that was halfway between a growl and a grin. Her eyes looked over his figure, taking in the poor state he was in due to the starvation and hard physical work his body had been put through, when they had given him only the very necessary to let their Champion hold on another day. 

He didn’t look like much, of that Shiro was sure, even though he hadn’t seen a mirror in a long time he could see the white tuft of hair hanging over his eyes, he was highly aware of all the scars that marked his body, ugly and burning red from the lack of a proper medication, he could only imagine what his back looked like; but he was tall for human standards, and the Arena had given him stronger muscles, making his shoulders wider and his fighting technique more efficient.

The woman muttered something in Galran Shiro couldn’t understand, then she turned around and called, “Keith, come here!”

The small human soldier walked over in calculated, long steps, tying his hands behind his back. He looked at Shiro briefly from the corner of his eyes, but he didn’t put much attention on him.

“I need you to take this human to Kolivan. He wants to enroll.”

“What?” Keith spluttered, moving his head from the woman to Shiro several times, opening his mouth slightly. “He’s not Galra,” Keith stated.

“Neither are you,” Shiro remarked impulsively. He saw the error of his ways when Keith turned to him with a deathly glare; if looks could have killed, he would have been dead on the spot. 

“Watch it.”

“Keith’s lineage is none of your business, now can you do what I asked? We’re blocking the line,” the woman observed, blankly. 

Keith seemed less than happy but he carried out his order like any good soldier would and reached for Shiro’s metal wrist to drag him unceremoniously out of the queue. They walked past several groups of Galran working around the ship until they reached what looked like a makeshift war table with hologram maps and a group of Galrans dressed in the same high-ranking outfit the woman from before was sporting.

The tallest of the officers - Kolivan, apparently - glared at Keith, he chatisticed him with a firm, “Have you lost your mind? What are you doing with him? Bring him back with the other civilians.”

Keith rolled his eyes so high his pupils disappeared behind his bangs. “Krolia told me to bring him to you. Apparently he wants to enlist.”

Kolivan scanned Shiro from head to toe, much like Krolia had done before. He raised his head slightly, turned around to the other officers for a brief second, then asked Shiro, “Where are you from, boy?”

“Earth. And my name is Shiro, Sir.”

Keith glared at him again, having long since let go of him, he forced himself to stay quiet as he tied his arms in front of his chest.

Kolivan scoffed, looming well over Shiro’s head, it was like he was a child again.

“You said Krolia told you to bring him to me?” Kolivan asked Keith, eyes still focused on Shiro’s figure in front of him.

“Yes, Sir,” Keith said.

“What did you do here, Shiro?”

“I fought in the Arena, Sir.” He swallowed, unsure if he should add something else, if it would help his case or make it even more of a lost cause. “They called me the Champion.”

Kolivan raised a single eyebrow, the only sign to make Shiro believe he was impressed with what he heard. “We heard of your accomplishments from Galran soldiers faithful to the Empire, Champion. Your reputation precedes you.”

“Permission to be completely honest, Sir?” he asked.

“Isn’t that what you’ve done up until now,  _ Shiro _ ?” Keith muttered next to him, dragging his name far too much, so his annoyance was palpable. As if Shiro hadn’t already figured out that he was clearly against his bold request.

“Shoot,” Kolivan replied, ignoring the younger soldier’s spite.

“I’m not sure whether I should be happy about that, Sir.”

Kolivan sighed. “So, you want to join us?” he mused, ignoring Shiro’s observation completely.

“Yes, Sir. I don’t have anything waiting for me back at home. Better make myself useful where I can.”

Kolivan breathed profoundly, puffing out his chest. He considered the boy in front of him, roughly six feet of malnourished muscle and a bold attitude, someone who had no idea of what the universe offered; considering what he knew about Earthlings, this could easily be the first trip to outer space he had even undergone, and he had been taken by the Galra as result.

“You said Krolia asked you to bring him to me?” Kolivan asked.

“Yessir.” Keith nodded.

“We’ll take you to our base and you’ll go through our Trials,” Kolivan announced. “If you suxceed, we’ll take you in as a cadet.”

“And what if I fail, Sir?” Shiro asked, hands tied behind his back.

“Then you die,” kolivan replied, matter-of-fact. 

Shiro nodded, gulping down the sudden discomfort.

He had been living the last months with the same knowledge: he either won or died in the arena, no second chances. If he died during the Trials, whatever those may entail, at least he had died fighting for his cause.

Kolivan looked impressed by his unflinching stance, he looked Shiro up and down for a second before motioning for Keith to take him away.

_ ___ _ __ _________________ __ _ _ __

Being in a ship filled with alien soldiers dressed in ominous black and blue suits whom Shiro had personally seen slaughter an entire Galra command was not such a comfort as others might have believed. 

Especially when he mulled over the fact that he was about to take part in some mysterious exam to demonstrate his worthiness of being one of them.

It was to no help that they called themselves  _ The Blades of Marmora _ , which to Shiro sounded like the name of a weird cult. It was the only information Keith had been willing to give him; his questions about the grim Trials had been troughtly ignored.

They were Galrans - at least most of them were - and Shiro’s mind had long since connected the image of purple skin and furry ears with danger and death, but he figured nothing could be worse than what he had experienced already so if those people really were secret spies working against Zarkon’s Empire, he had made the right decision.

He wasn’t going to mull on the options that would have presented themselves if his trust was misplaced.

The whole ship was quiet, the Blades were tired after the battle. Keith was silent, too, where he was sitting in front of him, cleaning his blade with a black cloth, his movements deliberately sharp.

“I know you don’t wanna talk to me,” Shiro began, whispering.

“Good, then shut up,” he answered without meeting Shiro’s eyes.

“But I have a good reason to be here, and I swear I don’t want to hurt you or your people in any way,” he finished.

Keith sighed, he stopped working on his knife and looked Shiro right in the eyes. “You don’t belong here, with us. Your reasons don’t matter.”

“I’ll prove you wrong,” Shiro said with an air of finality.

Keith shook his head and rolled his eyes. “Whatever, Rookie.”

Once they reached the base, Kolivan guided him to a new arena, all slick lines and grey metal, that reminded Shiro of the one he had just left. At the other end of the room was a door similar to the one they had gone through to enter the room.

He felt like he was about to suffocate in the skin-tight suit the Blades had provided him with.

“Prove yourself, Champion,” Kolivan declared before leaving Shiro alone in the empty room.

A few seconds later, a Blade dressed head to toe in their distinctive uniform came out from a circle in the middle of the room, they hissed and moved their tail. 

“You are not meant to go through that door,” the Blade’s voice boomed around the empty room as they prepared themselves to fight, black spear in one hand.

Shiro made his Glara arm glow a deep purple, he walked a few steps toward the Blade, waiting for their attack.

The opponent launched themselves at Shiro. He used his prosthetic to take hold of the Blade’s spear and launch it on the other side of the room, then he took advantage of the split second of surprise to take hold of the other’s arm and twist it behind their back, effectively knocking the Blade on the ground and rendering them unconscious with a severe blow to the back of their head.

The door in front of him opened, and he stepped through. On the other end, two Blades were waiting for him.

“You are not meant to go through that door,” they declared.

“Yeah,” Shiro replied, closing his robotic hand in a fist. “I got that part.”

He defeated the two Blades, then the tree after them and so on.

Each battle took more out of him, each opponents stronger than the last. He felt like the player in a video game with no escape route. 

He collected more cuts and bruises during those Trials than in months held as gladiator on a Galra cruiser.

When he finally knocked down the last of six opponents, painting and barely standing up, he debated whether to walk on the other side of the door, wondering if he could really take on seven well-trained Blades, so tall they hovered well above him.

He flinched as soon as he took a step forward, his entire body protesting for the exercion. He pondered if Kolivan was watching him somehow, taking pleasure in seeing the Champion fall.

He told himself he wouldn’t give them the satisfaction to see him surrender, right before collapsing face-first into the floor.

Shiro woke up, he didn’t know how long later, without feeling pain coursing through his body, and when he looked down he saw that the suit (cut, almost torn to pieces) was replaced by his Garrison uniform: pristine, soft grey.

Most importantly, his right arm was back to being firm flesh under his eyes. He moved it around to inspect it better, closing his fist and releasing it just to make sure he wasn’t hallucinating. 

When he finally managed to raise his gaze he saw it right in front of him: the AT-298 was waiting for them to launch toward Kerberos. He could see his reflection on the rocket’s surface, face clean and hair pitch black.

Shiro gasped when he recognized the landscape, the infinite desert stretching before him and beyond where his eyes could see; the cameras and press standing far enough from the site that they looked like specks in the orizion, ready to capture the moment they would launch for the most important space expedition in human history.

He heard voices, Matt chatting excitedly with his little sister not far from where Shiro was standing; Sam saying goodbye to his wife before Coleen hugged her son one last time.

They were alive, exactly like he remembered them. For the briefest of moments, Shiro thought all that had happened after the launch had been just a bad dream and he had finally woken up.

He sighed in relief, Sam noticed the pain behind his eyes, the tears making their way to his cheeks, and put a reassuring hand on his shoulder.

“Shiro, is everything okay?”

“Yes,” he assured, “Just excited.”

Deep in a corner of his mind, he knew what was going on wasn’t real, but he wasn’t willing to give it up so soon.

He could see it, from the corner of his eye, a distant Galra cruiser making its way toward them, but he told himself that if he kept on ignoring it, it would go away on its own.

“Shiro,” Coleen called. Her face wasn’t as welcoming as Shiro had expected, she was looking at him with a frown, disappointment etched in each curve of her face. “You promised you would bring them back,” she said, her voice was stern but emotionless. 

Shiro stuttered.

Sam disappeared from his side, Matt and Katie’s laughter gone with him. The sky turned black behind him, heavy clouds marching up above his head turned even the golden sand into pure darkness.

“You promised, Shiro. Why aren’t you looking for them?”

“I am. Coleen, I promised.”

He could swear she was right in front of him a second before, but then he was standing at the center of the Galran Arena where he had been forced to fight for the past year with a spear in his hands, blood dripping painlessly from his face as a beast charged at him with all its force.

He had seconds to respond, swinging the weapon in his hand. Cheers roared in his head, all those voices claiming him their Champion because he was made to dirty his hands with other people’s bloods, because he had been given a power he had never wanted in the first place.

When he missed his hit and the beast jumped on him, making him fall down and hit his head on the floor, blurring his vision until all that was in front of him was lifeless black.

The voices finally stopped.

He opened his eyes with a start, gasping for air, clutching at the first thing he could find, which turned out to be Keith’s forearm. He was looking at Shiro with a deep frown on his face, roaming Shiro’s face with his gaze.

Despite his less than accommodating behaviour, Keith helped him get up, but immediately left his side as soon as he noticed that Shiro had regained his balance.

Krolia and Kolivan stared at him with a subtle kind of curiosity.

“From this moment on, you’ll be working as a cadet for the Blade of Marmora,” Kolivan declared, looking a Shiro.

Keith’s eyes widened. Shiro huffed out a laugh that made his ribs ache and the wound on his side pulse. He needed to put his good hand on his hip to provide pressure, his fingers turning red quickly.

“You have strong fighting skills, however you lack stealth. Keith will help you learn the basics of our combat methods, I’m sure you will catch on quickly enough.”

Keith flared up, he yelled something in Galran, clearly throwing a fit while Kolivan responded in kind, without moving even an inch. They argued back and forth for a while, finally Keith turned around, annoyed and rolling his eyes again, he muttered a short reply and huffed loudly.

Shiro watched the scene with mild amusement, but he forced himself to scold down his grin when Keith turned to him and declared, “You’d better be worth it, Rookie.”

“I’m sorry, he’s a bit of a hot-head,” Krolia told Shiro as Keith all but stormed out. “I guess he takes after me. His father was more the sensitive type.” She smiled at Shiro, using two fingers to mimic a Earth’s military salute before she reached her son.

Her son. Keith was half Galra.

Krolia didn’t even bother commenting further on the latest discovery, deciding to tend to Shiro’s wounds with a thread and needle she took from a little aid kit at her feet Shiro hadn’t noticed before.

He forgot all about the shock of the news when Krolia started to stitch him up, choosing to focus on not screaming out in pain.

Kolivan guided Shiro to an inhabited room that, from that moment on, would be his quarter. It wasn’t different from his room at the Garrison: a minimal, functional living space with nothing but a bed, a desk and a few drawers to put his belongings into.

Shiro was glad he could go back to a clean room with a soft place to rest.

He was told to shower and wear clean clothes that Krolia gave him before they’d bring a doctor to run some tests and help him with the rest of his battle bruises.

Feeling clean water wash away all the dirt and mud helped Shiro regain a bit of clarity. He also used the time he was given by himself to take a good look at his scars; he remembered each cut with stark clarity, the way they stung on his body, making his strong will the only weapon against certain death.

He moved his metal arm under the water, clenching his fist and unclenching it several times while he studied the faint purple glow between the planks of metal. Briefly, he wondered if the tech could resist prolonged contact with water or if it would rust. He guessed the weapon they had given him was a valuable tool to use during his training with the Blades, so he shoved it out of the water spray.

After he had dressed in the pristine black and blue clothes, the material soft against his skin, Shiro sat down on his bed, mind racing in a million directions.

He was startled by someone knocking at his door, but he quickly regained his composure when Keith walked in with another Galra by his side.

“Hello Shiro, I’m Thace. I’m here to take a look at you and determine whether you can go straight to battle training or not,” the unknown Galra introduced himself, he was by far the most welcoming among those he had interacted with and Shiro was glad to have met a friendly face.

Keith stood at one end of the room, arms crossed and back stuck to the wall behind him. 

“I know you just got dressed but I need you to take off your shirt for the examination,” Thace told him, opening up a pad much like the ones Krolia had used to classify him.

Shiro gulped down the dryness in his mouth.

He had hoped to keep his battered body to himself, he felt incredibly bare and vulnerable under the room’s harsh lights and Keith’s scrutinizing gaze, but at the same time the ache at his side reminded him of the way he had been thrown like a ragdoll during the Trials, so he surrendered to the doctor’s visit.

“You can wait behind the door, Keith. We’ll be right there,” Thace ordered. 

Keith nodded and left, moving with all the precision fit to a soldier.

Shiro smiled, grateful, and undressed with a little more serenity. He had grown used to doctors’ appointments, even though he was in a spaceship in the middle of the universe and the man in front of him was alien, this situation felt familiar in the strangest sort of way.

This he knew how to do: follow orders and answer questions about his health, he had been doing it all his life, and Thace was truly a comforting presence to be around. 

“Did you find anything bad?” he asked at the end of the check-up, after he had put his shirt back on and Thace had finished writing all his notes on his pad.

Thace shook his head, “No, you’re fine, Shiro. You just need to eat and drink, your body will regain his balance in a few days with the right amount of sustenance and work-out. You’ll be right as rain in no time.” He sent Shiro a calming smile, and patted him on the shoulder.

“How long do I have?” Shiro asked blankly. He was used to counting up the days until he could no longer move his fingers or even speak; the doctors had told him he could endure two years at most, but that was considering a strict therapeutic routine and monthly check-ups.

Thace raised an eyebrow, he took a look at his pad and asked, “W- what do you mean?”

“My muscles, how are they?” Shiro specified, inching closer on the bed.

“You’re fine. Why wouldn’t you be?”

“No, you don’t understand. I have a disease, it’s terminal,” he explained with all the clarity he could manage.

“You do?” Thace chuckled. “I don’t see anything wrong with you, Shiro. Your muscular tissue is completely healthy.”

“It is?”

“Yes. I swear, you’re fine.” Thace put a hand on his shoulder, to keep him grounded.

Shiro inhaled, laughing hysterically. He took a look at his hands, they slowly became blurry over the tears spilling down his face. 

He was fine. There was no time-limit on his mission. He could save the Holts and come back alive, continue his life as long as he was allowed. 

He felt like a weight had been physically pushed off his shoulders, one so heavy he wondered how he had been able to breath until that point.

Suddenly he had the chance to program his whole life and he had no idea where to start: he had nothing and no one waiting for him back on Earth, they probably declared the team aboard the Kerberos mission dead or irremediably lost, plus he had just signed up to become a member of a secret alien society fighting an intergalactic war.

“Shiro?” Thace called him softly, “Are you okay?”

Shiro wiped his tears with the back of his new shirt, the soft fabric was a relief against his jarred skin and he breathed in a few times before meeting Thace’s gaze.

“I think I will be.”

He had spent his whole life training to become a soldier, if he couldn’t do it on Earth he was more than happy to join a bigger cause and help however he could. He would save Sam and Matt, that was still his top priority and nothing could have ever persuaded him into leaving them in the hands of the enemy, but after that there was no reason for him to go back to his home planet.

He had always wished to see the stars.

“How do you know so much about human biology anyway?” Shiro asked to change the subject, his eyes were still a little puffy from crying but Thace accepted his silent request of more time to ponder over the new discovery.

“When you have a little half-Galra teething and crying all night you kinda have to,” he recalled fondly. “Krolia was desperate, we had to look over old records to find something to help her.”

Shiro busied himself by imagining a small Keith yelling in his mother’s arms, a group of Galra soldiers, tall and muscular beyond belief, fussing over him in distress. It made him smile for its absurdity.

“Keith was always…” Thace couldn’t find the exact word, Shiro was sure the ones that came to his mind weren’t the ones his loving tutor would have used so he kept quiet. “Difficult to deal with,” the doctor decided.

“You can say that again,” Shiro confirmed.

“I’m sure he’ll warm up to you, just wait. Speaking of, he’s still waiting for us to finish here.”

Thace did a quick work of calling Keith back to them, handling him the informations he needed to work around a schedule for Shiro whom, for his part, was still sitting on the bed and pretending he didn’t see the scowl on Keith’s face, deepening severely as Thace talked.

Being escorted by his reluctant guide to the base’s equivalent of a dining area proved to be the silent walk Shiro had expected. He was too busy looking around at the complex structure of the constructions around him, marveling at the way they had managed to recreate a whole city in a secluded space to care about Keith giving him the cold shoulder treatment.

There weren’t many soldiers around, not as many as one would expect at least, but seeing the lights working their way through the metal, much like the glow in Shiro’s own arm, made it look like it was vibrating with energy.

Keith didn’t even look at him, walking a few feet ahead, so Shiro was surprised when he said, “Careful, Rookie. Don’t fall behind.”

Shiro jogged quickly to reach Keith’s side, he took a few seconds to really look at the other man now that they weren’t in the middle of a battlefield.

He wanted to ask him so many questions, but he also knew they wouldn’t be well-received so he decided against it. 

“I can hear your brain overworking from here,” Keith stated, blankly. “If there is something you want to ask me just… do it, I guess.”

Shiro could feel the real meaning behind those words, how Keith didn’t want to answer any imposing questions and was only saying what he believed Kolivan would want him to say.

“It’s okay,” Shiro assured him, shrugging. 

“You’re really weird.”

Shiro chuckled, but he didn’t add anything, content to follow the other man’s steps even as his bones praid for him to go back in his room and sleep on a real bed for the first time in what was sure to be months spent in prison.

Dinner was not a private affair for the Blades. 

They all ate in one big common room, and Keith lead him to sit with a group of the younger recruits, ones who behaved more like actual people than emotionless robots; Shiro was glad for the company.

He pushed through the weariness and nausea when he tried to eat his first bite of space food, caused both from the odor and the fact that his body wasn’t used to having actual supplies in it anymore.

Thace had said he needed to take it easy, so he only pushed himself to eat up to a certain amount and used the rest of the meal to talk with the Blades, asking all the questions about their culture and costumes that Keith didn’t want to talk him about.

Shiro was starting to think Keith didn’t want to talk about anything, to anyone, judging by the way he brushed off any kind of conversation starter, even from his peers.

“Oh, you’re no fun,” one of the girls in front of them complained at one point when Keith ignored another one of their questions, she scratched behind her fluffy violet ears and grunted when Keith responded with a slight roll of his eyes. “Honestly, I don’t know why Kolivan thought it’d be a good idea to let Shiro train with you.”

“Maybe because I can actually fight,” Keith answered, he wasn’t trying to be rude, Shiro sensed he was only stating something he strongly believed in.

The girl shook her head and resumed her meal without trying to talk to him again, steering her attention to Shiro who had become the talk of the table and, apparently, the whole base in the few minutes that had taken him to be checked by Thace.

Rumors had already spread about the reason Kolivan admitted him to be one of them so quickly, the younger Galras at the table informed Shiro that some of them had heard about his days as Champion, absurd tales spun for the easily impressed.

When that became a sore topic and the young aliens noticed Shiro’s uneasiness at being reminded of what he had gone through, they switched to talking about Krolia’s time on Earth, the three years she had spent away from them to return with a baby in her arms.

Keith scoffed at each new story, commenting with a sharp remark about how absurd they all were, until a boy sitting to his other side asked, “Well then, why do you think they let him enroll?”

Keith had looked at Shiro from the corner of his eye, mouth full of food-goo that tasted incredibly like oatmeal. He gulped down slowly, leaving him time to elaborate on his answer. “He won the Trials.”

“I thought the Trials couldn’t be won,” the boy rebutted.

“Shiro did,” Keith replied, cold and final. No one dared to say anything more on the subject.

It was the first time Shiro had heard his name coming from Keith without spite or mockery, he considered it a small victory.

By the end of the meal, Shiro’s head was pounding, the more severe injury at his side making his vision spotted, upsetting his stomach. He started to cough, luckily nothing but clean saliva. 

Keith escorted him to his room as soon as he noticed the discomfort, without saying goodbye to anyone; he merely grabbed Shiro by the elbow and told him, “You need to rest. Thace warned me about this.”

Shiro sighed, alone in his room. 

Too weared out to do anything, even thinking about the day’s events sounded like too much, Shiro collapsed on top of the covers without bothering to wear the night clothes Krolia had supplied him in the closet next to the bed.

He fell in a dreamless sleep, for the first time in months, confident of the decisions that had led him to that point.

_____

The gym Keith had brought him to the following day looked more like a battlefield than anything he had ever trained in. 

It was a massive room with grey walls and dark floors, littered with every kind of tool and machine Shiro could think of - even several he had never seen before. At the center of the room was a large blue mat where Krolia was sparring with one of her soldiers.

Keith was talking to him, saying something about how he couldn’t force himself too much, that he was still recovering so he needed to go slow on the first day, but all Shiro could focus on was the way Krolia moved, using techniques he had never seen before.

It was fascinating, Shiro wanted to do that immediately.

“Can you teach me what your mom is doing?” he blurted out, interrupting Keith mid-sentence. 

Keith blinked. He followed Shiro’s gaze just in time to see Krolia smash her opponent on the mat.

“It took me months to work those moves, and I was born here. Do you honestly think you could handle it?” he asked, judgment flooding his voice.

“Well, I’m sure I could win against you, even with all your ninja moves.”

Keith opened his mouth, but thought better of it at the last second; he spared one glance to the fighting mat, seeing two Blades already staring another match. “You wanna fight, Rookie?” he started, gritting his teeth. “Let’s fight.”

Shiro hadn’t expected for this outcome, not right away, but he had started to understand that if he wanted to push Keith’s buttons he needed to be as blunt as possible, otherwise all he would get was a shrug or an annoyed look.

Keith grabbed his elbow and dragged him on top of the mat, taking off his shoes and interrupting the match that was currently taking place with a loud, “Gimme some ground.”

People moved around immediately, they all seemed slightly scared of Keith despite him being the smallest one; Shiro was sure half of those aliens could snap him in two if they wanted to.

Keith took off his shoes, raised his gloved fists and put on a defense stance. “What are you waiting for?”

Shiro looked around, as if Keith could possibly be talking about anybody else, then he submitted to his fate and walked over to the mat, as soon as his bare feet touched the soft fighting ground Keith’s eyes gleamed, Shiro was sure he saw the other boy smirking, too.

“Look,” he started, “I didn’t mean to-” he got interrupted when Keith launched himself forward, punching him straight on the shoulder so he had to step back, on the edge between the mat and the steel floor of the gym.

“Less talking more punching, come on.” Keith bounced back to give Shiro some space. “Show me what you’ve got.”

Shiro moved swiftly to try and knock Keith down by kicking his legs out of balance, but the other man was quicker on his feet and he caught the movement before it could reach him, jumping back again and immediately running around Shiro to hit him on the back, making him stumble forward.

Keith was too fast, to agile, and Shiro was still drowsy from the lack of adrenaline the Galras forced into his system every time he had to fight. His movements couldn’t match up, so it wasn’t hard for Keith to intersect Shiro’s next move, grabbing his wrist and sliding it behind his back.

With a single motion, Keith planted his knee between Shiro’s shoulder blades and concentrated all his weight in that single point so his opponent would fall on the floor, constricted.

Shiro grunted as he hit the floor, feeling Keith’s impressive weight against his back. “I yield.” 

Keith grinned, squeezing Shiro’s wrist just once before he got up. “If you want to learn some of our ninja-moves, I suggest you start by working on using your legs more than your fists. Brute force doesn’t work well in stealth missions,” he explained, his voice had an edge of overconfidence to it that immediately felt weird to Shiro, even if he didn’t know that guy that well he could tell that wasn’t his general attitude.

He had noticed something while they fought, a spark in Keith’s eyes that hadn’t been there before, the hint of something that Shiro had seen in his own face when he was about to leave for Kerberos.

Keith helped him get up by offering him a hand which then he swiftly retrieved as if he had been burned. He started to list all the things Shiro had to change, what he needed to work on and the strong suits he had to keep.

“How do you know so much about my fighting style? You knocked me down in five seconds,” Shiro said, gripping his hip where the bruise from the Trials was still making him cringe each time he moved too much his left side.

“I saw you during the Trials,” he admitted, as if it was obvious. “You’re good. No wonder they called you the Champion.”

“Thanks.”

“Good for the rest of the Universe, not enough for the Blades,” Keith specified. He studied the weapons sitting on the wall next to them, brushing one of the knives with the tip of his fingertips.

Shiro noticed the variety of armaments put on display for everyone to take, it looked more like a show made for an armory than anything else.

“Good thing you’re here to teach me, then,” Shiro offered an olive branch.

Keith was turned halfway, but Shiro could bet he had seen the hint of a smile on his face. 

“Dinner?” Shiro suggested, he wasn’t sure he could stomach more food, at least not a large amount, but he needed the strength and walking in the dining room with someone else made him feel less uncomfortable.

Keith took a deep breath, he turned fully to stare at the man in front of him and shook his head faintly. “I can’t. I have- other things to do.”

“Like what?”

“None of your business,” Keith replied flatly.

Shiro walked out of the gym, resigning himself to eating alone.

He sat with the same people he had talked to the night before, the boy who had asked about the Trials asked him if Keith was joining them and Shiro was surprised by his own disappointment when he had to say no.

_____

Shiro hadn’t given much thought about his training with the Blades at first; he had figured it would be easy enough since he had worked his whole life to get to touch the stars, but apparently becoming a space ninja required a whole new set of skill Shiro didn’t have, learning a different combat method and - most importantly - regaining the strength he had lost during his stay with the Galra Empire and the Trials.

After the first week, Shiro started to feel better and improve on the mat; by the time his first complete month with the Blades passed, Shiro was officially back in the game and he was happy with his new life.

Granted, the food was not as elaborate as the ones on Earth. 

The Galra didn’t care for cousine, they just needed to have their nourishment every day, but Shiro had lived off weird injections and sheer force of will so he wasn’t about to complain.

Also, when it came to one-on-one battles with Keith, he was still far too slow to catch up to him and ended up with his back to the pavement every single time. They tried to work on his agility, a quality he had lost after his second growth-spurt at seventeen had given him long limbs and no clue how to use them.

Keith was quick, used to fight against taller, broader enemies so it was easy for him to spot Shiro’s weaker points and harder for Shiro to identify Keith’s moves.

Sometimes, when he worked particularly well, Keith would offer him a nod of agreement or a simple, “You’re improving, Rookie,” when he offered Shiro a hand to pull him up from the mat.

Shiro vowed he would beat him before the next month, Keith scoffed and replied, “Dare to dream,” before picking up a bottle of water and throwing it at him with a simple, “Drink, doctor’s orders.”

They weren’t properly friends, but they spent hours in the gym almost every day and then amicably argued about fighting stances and tactics when Keith escorted him back to his room at the end of a training session, Shiro laughed at the other man’s dry humor when everyone else gave him the stink eye more often than not and Keith subtly looked after Shiro’s health by making sure he didn’t overwork himself or remembering him to take the pills Thace had prescribed him.

From what Shiro had seen, none of the officers except for Krolia had kids.

Keith was an exception in everything from his upbringings down to his appearance; his pricky character and stiff demeanor didn’t make him look more approachable either so it wasn’t surprising to see he didn’t really have a circle of friends.

Shiro was glad he could pierce through his armour, even as little as he had.

His days went on undisturbed until one day, upon opening up his room’s door, Shiro came face to face with something that broke his constructed routine. His brain had needed a few seconds to analyze the image before him, but there was no doubt he was seeing a wolf.

It was blue and black, taller and buffer than any terrestrial wolves, and it appeared to be glowing faintly.

Shiro didn’t want to anger the space wolf, but he was extremely curious as to where it had come from so he stepped forward, trying not to make any noise that would have lead to it spotting his presence.

A loud voice called from one end of the hallway, “Kosmo! Where are you?”

Shiro didn’t have the time to recognize who was yelling before the wolf turned around and zeroed on him, showing a hint of his sharp teeth and barking.

Shiro gulped.

Krolia and Keith turned the corner, coming face to face with Shiro and the wolf, their eyes widened when they saw its reaction to Shiro’s presence. 

“Careful, he-” was all Keith could utter before the wolf jumped on the supposed intruder, knocking him down on the ground.

Shiro felt all air leave his lungs as he fell, knocking his head rather loudly on the floor. He slowly came to his senses only to realize the wolf was licking his face from the side of his jaw up to his hair, making it stand up. 

The wolf barked twice, wagging his large tail against Shiro’s legs and planting his huge paws more firmly on his chest. 

“Bites,” Keith finished, half-heartedly. 

Krolia stood beside him, gleefully enjoying the scene: her usual subtle amusement dancing behind the corner of her yellow eyes.

Shiro was struggling against the wolf’s big nose sniffing at his neck and making him squirm with laughter. 

“Come here Kosmo. Leave Shiro alone.” Krolia decided to end his sufferings, pushing Kosmo’s chest out of the way so Shiro could sit up and get his bearings. 

Shiro petted Kosmo’s head, which the wolf gladly accepted. “I’m gonna have to wash up again because of you, you know that?” he said, talking in a weirdly high-pitched voice as Kosmo barked in response.

“Didn’t know you were a dog's person,” Krolia observed, stealing a glance at her son behind her.

“I’m not,” Shiro answered, getting up fully and using his longer sleeve to try and clean up the drool from his face. “I prefer cats, but animals in general are… you can’t not love them.”

“I suppose felines do make for a nice companionship, if one can win them over,” Krolia continued. “Isn’t that right, Keith?”

Keith blushed faintly, crossing his arms against his chest and mumbling, “What do I know?” Kosmo walked up to him, so he used the wolf to hide his evident discomfort by crunching down and hiding his face in it’s fur.

“Where does he come from anyway?” Shiro asked watching Keith tend to the massive space wolf.

“I needed to ask you something,” Krolia told Shiro in a surprisingly light tone, once again avoiding his question. “Today marks the remembrance of a great accomplishment by Galra fleets. Usually, Galras use this day to honor our ancestors by fighting in their honor, but we Blades prefer to have a little celebration of our own.”

Shiro’s attention was fully concentrated on Krolia’s speech, she sounded like there was some catch to the whole conversation he wasn’t picking up on. “Which is?”

“We celebrate by dancing and singing old songs, reuniting around a campfire to see the stars and remember our place as defenders of the universe, renewing our research for peace,” she explained.

Shiro was merging on amused when he pointed out, “So you have a party?”

Krolia nodded, “Yes, I suppose that’s what you call them on Earth. isn’t it?”

He chuckled, picturing all the stone cold soldiers he had met during his brief stay sing and dance around a fire like teenagers camping in the woods; at the same time, his heart restricted thinking about the fact that, once again, he was met with traditions that brought him somewhat closer to Earth while being millions of lightyears from it.

Krolia sensed his shifting mood, because she offered, “You’re welcome to join us, if you want to.”

Keith jolted upright, scaring Kosmo. “He is?”

“Of course. It would be a way for him to learn more about our culture. Besides, I think you’re due some fun. Isn’t it right, Shiro?”

He blinked. “Yes, I guess a little celebration won’t hurt.”

He tried to ignore the way Keith huffed, rolling his eyes behind Kosmo’s mutt even as Krolia nodded in acknowledgment and told him to meet them outside the base after his training. 

He knew he wasn’t part of them, he would never fully comprehend their culture, but if he wanted to get back on his feet he needed Keith’s help. 

Shiro sighed as they left, realizing he had to unravel all the feelings and thoughts that were clouding his mind in order to complete his mission in time.

_____

That night, outside the base, Shiro saw a new side of the Galras for the first time, one he had been privy to during his captivity - he actually wondered whether they knew anything else beside bloodlust and the desire for war - which surprised him in the best way.

Sitting at the edge of the base was a campfire, nestled between the entrance and the end of the meteor they had settled on. Younger Blades danced to the sound of alien music played by a group of older officers.

It was nice, Shiro felt like he could breathe for the first time in months. 

Krolia gestured for him to sit down next to her at the far end of the campfire. 

He could have joined Keith in staying far from the festivities, back against the base’s walls while Keith worked silently on his blade, but despite Keith’s behavior having softened around the edges, Shiro was still mostly sure he didn’t like being too close to the human rookie. He didn’t want to damage whatever relationship was forming between him and Keith.

So Shiro chose to accept Krolia’s invitation, watching in front of him as Galra teens danced around the fire following the rhythm of a music he had never heard, played with foreign instruments. He didn’t understand the words, but the melody was mellow, almost like a lullaby, and it lured him into a sense of calmness he hadn’t felt in a long time.

“It’s nice,” he whispered, half-smiling.

“I’m glad you like it,” Krolia acknowledged, bobbing her head along with the music.

“How is it going?” Krolia asked Shiro, her eyes pointed to Keith’s figure, barely visible over the flame and chaos of the celebrations.

“Training? It’s fine. I wasn’t really putting myself in it, I was still battered up from the Trials, but I think it’s going to be better next week,” he said.

“I’m glad. We’re going to leave soon, check some Galra cruisers. I was hoping you could join us,” she suggested, bumping her shoulder with Shiro’s.

He stuttered for a few seconds, surprised beyond belief. He wasn’t expecting for the Blades to trust him so easily.

“Yes, I’d be honored,” he answered honestly. Shiro noticed the woman’s satisfaction, her openness that was so hard to find in her son’s features, their features that resembled each other’s so much even though one of them looked like they belonged on a totally different planet.

It all lead him to ask the question that had been swirling on his mind ever since he had arrived on the ship, “Why did you accept to take me in?”

“I didn’t, Kolivan did.”

“Yes but you could have sent me home in the first place,” he reminded her. She had been her first line to reach Kolivan and stand the Trials of Marmora. She had basically vouched for him.

She took a deep breath, eyes focused on the party going on around them. Her cheeks were dark, she was still holding a glass with some amber liquid in it. Shiro guessed alcool was not that different out in space. “You remind me of Keith’s father.”

“Really?”

She nodded firmly. “Guess my son and I have the same taste when it comes to mates.” She raised her glass in Shiro’s direction before gulping down the last remains of her drink.

Shiro had needed a few seconds to understand the subtext of her affirmation, he blushed a deep red and started blabbing, “No, that’s not- Keith and I are not even friends and honestly I don’t think he’d want to touch me if it wasn’t to punch me on the ground. Ma’am, sir. Krolia.”

She snorted, watching his slow melt-down with delight. “Oh, you are so young.” She pointed a finger at his chest and added, “You have a lot to learn.”

She got up, patting his knee or her way, leaving Shiro alone to ask himself what exactly she had meant, replaying every interaction he hand Keith had ever had in his head twice before moving on to the next.

He was so focused in his train of thought that he didn’t feel Thace’s presence beside him: he had sat himself on Shiro’s right side, putting a glass half full of clear liquor under his nose. 

“Drink,” he ordered even as Shiro recoiled back from the heavy smell.

“What, poison? No, thanks,” he reclined, moving away the glass with his arm.

“It’s not poison, it’s a drink. You drink it.” Thace was heavily intoxicated, his eyelids half closed and his movements as sluggish as his words. 

Against his better judgment, Shiro took the glass and drank the smallest hint of the liquid inside after laughing at Thace’s intent look while he tried to focus on Shiro’s figure; as he expected the warmth crept up from his throat and moved its way up until he fell into an almost uncontrollable coughing fit.

“This is awful,” he managed to say between coughs. “What even is this?”

“Something with a name too hard for me to say in this state and too foreign for your ears to comprehend.”

“Thanks, buddy.” Shiro gave the glass still full to one of the cadets that was passing by, ignoring Thace’s upset yelling telling him to give it back so he could finish it. “Sorry, you’ve had enough,” Shiro apologized.

Thace scoffed. “Those younglings wouldn’t know how to appreciate good alcool if it hit them in the face.”

Shiro noticed Keith and Krolia approaching them from afar, he gave an amused shrug of his shoulders when the others came close enough, Krolia put her arms on her hips, examining Thace’s stance and reddened cheeks with a mixture of delight and judgment. 

“He broke into Kolivan’s liquor cabin again,” Keith explained. 

Krolia shook her head and took hold of her friend so she could pull him up. “Come, party’s over for you.”

“Ow, you’re no fun,” he mumbled, shaking his head left and right. 

Krolia rolled her eyes, Shiro marveled at how much it reminded him of when Keith did the same thing. 

As Krolia and Thace left so he could be put to bed for the night, Keith sit down on the space previously occupied by the intoxicated doctor, smiling lightly at his antics. 

“He does that every year. And mom takes him away every year,” he clarified. 

In a puff of blue stardust, Kosmo materialized at Keith’s back, laying his head onto his massive paws so he could take solace in the heat of the fire so close and comfortable in contrast with the cold air. He was so large that Keith only needed to push himself a little further back to be lying comfortably on the wolf’s side like a couch cushion.

Shiro jumped back so fast he would have fallen on his back if it wasn’t for Kosmo’s firm back keeping him upright. A back he was laying on because apparently Keith’s wolf could teleport. 

“Does he do it often?” he asked, his voice trembling slightly.

“Who, Kosmo? Yes,” Keith replied with nonchalance, sinking back in the wolf’s soft fur, scratching behind Kosmo’s ear in thanks with one hand. He looked incredibly at ease with the whole situation, which meant he was used to having his cosmic blue wolf teleport at random places next to him.

Shiro shook his head, chuckling under his breath.

“What is it?” Keith asked. His eyes were barely open, Shiro guessed the blush over his cheeks was caused by the alcool or the fire right in front of them, either way it made him look younger somehow, along with the way he had tied his hair up in a messy ponytail and decided to wear something that wasn’t battle suits or work-out clothes.

“It’s just…” Shiro stuttered. He wanted to address the wolf situation, tease or make a joke. He really did. “I’ve never seen you like this before.”

Keith tensed noticeably. It was a thing he usually did, straightening his shoulders whenever someone who wasn’t his mother talked to him. “Like what?”

“Comfortable,” Shiro replied, turning away when Keith moved his head to look in his direction; he suddenly found the fire incredibly interesting. “Not about to fight someone.”

“You’ve seen me not about to fight someone,” Keith echoed, turning his full body in Shiro’s direction. He wasn’t inquisitive nor evasive and Shiro could swear there was a little violet flower stuck in his hair.

 “It’s nice to see you relax, that’s all.”

They were quiet for a few moments, the festivities were going on all around them but they were content to just listen. The atmosphere let them sink back, taking a few hours to resettle and recharge in the midst of the high-tensions days ahead of them.

Which brought to mind Krolia’s latest proposition. “Your mother told me I can join you in the next rescue mission.” He didn’t want to talk about it when they were finally enjoying some down time, nevertheless he needed to inform Keith of something so important that would lead to him intrude in another major aspect of his life.

It had proven hard to find a space inside Krolia and Keith’s routine, and he could only imagine how hard it would be to find part in something so strictly organized and repetitive like a militar routine.

Most of all, Shiro was afraid of the way Keith would react with having him around more often, because if this mission was going to go well Shiro had every intention of asking to be a fixed addition to the rescue team until he found a trace of Sam and Matt.

Once again, Keith defied Shiro’s expectations by shrugging and nodding slightly, “We’ll have to move at a faster pace with some stuff, but I think you’ll be ready for next time.”

Shiro hummed, but didn’t comment further. 

“Can I ask you something?” Keith asked in the smallest, most quiet voice he had ever used around Shiro.

“Sure.”

“Why did you decide to join us?”

Shiro was taken aback, he blinked twice and took a deep breath before he even tried to come up with an answer. He knew everyone around him was asking themselves the same question, still he had never thought about what he was going to say if anyone had the nerve to say it out loud, so he simply told the truth, “I’m looking for the rest of my crew.”

Keith didn’t say anything, he moved closer and disturbed Kosmo’s balance so the wolf huffed loudly through his nose. Shiro realized Keith was waiting for more.

“We had just landed on Kerberos when the Galra took us. They separated us after they noticed my teammates weren’t suited to fight in the Arena. They are genius mathematicians, incredible scientists, so I think they were brought somewhere to work on Galra tech.” Shiro took a deep breath; he felt like he had just ran a marathon.

Keith hesitated for a moment, hand hovering in the air, before he gingerly put it on Shiro’s arm. They had never touched outside the mat, so the contact made Shiro so incredibly tense Keith took back the comforting gesture, putting his hand on his lap.

“Sorry,” he whispered.

“No, I’m sorry. It’s not- I was surprised. That’s all,” Shiro was quick to explain.

He thought he noticed relief on Keith’s face, but he wasn’t building any hopes that they could finally turn their tentative companionship in a real friendship, even though the whole night surely seemed to be a rusty attempt at doing just that.

“So you came with us to look for your team,” Keith summed up. Shiro supposed it was mostly to change the subject. 

“That’s the plan,” he agreed.

“What then?”

Shiro sighed. He knew the answer to that question, he had been mulling it over ever since Thace had told him about his illness. “I don’t know.” He frowned. “Why do you ask?”

Keith shrugged, bowing his head to hide his blush. He cleaned his throat, Shiro suspected it was mostly to give himself time to find an answer. He raised his head to the starry sky.

Keith had never showed himself to be so vulnerable in front of anyone besides Krolia, such an abrupt change from the calm and serenity that was marking his face a few minutes before. Shiro couldn’t help but feel somehow responsible.

“You’ll want to go back to Earth once you find your team.”

Shiro looked up as well, at the open universe surrounding him, incredibly close yet out of reach. All his life had been devoted to the moment he could travel outside his solar system, outside his galaxy, far far away until he found the edge of nothing.

He knew what he wanted to do next.

“I want to see the stars,” he admitted, finding the same childlike wonder in his voice that had accompanied him during his training with the Garrison. It was, he realized for the first time in almost a year, the only thing that would make him really happy.

“You saw the stars.”

“No,” Shiro noted. “I want to see all of them.” His eyes were sparkling with stupor, his whole body alit with wonder. That night, under a carpet of new constellations, he remembered why he had let a bunch of strangers put him on a rocket launched to the unknown, he remembered why he had endured years of training and sacrifice, months of studying for finals and stressing out over grades with Matt.

Keith studied him with the tiniest glint of something Shiro couldn’t quite place dancing at the corner of his mouth; fondness was the closest word to describe it.

“Then you’re in good company.”

Shiro chuckled. “Careful, if you act kindly with me for a few minutes more I might think you like me.”

“I tolerate you well enough,” Keith teased back.

“There you go!” Shiro bumped their shoulders playfully. “What was that finally made you cave, the annoyingly invasive questions or all the times I let you use me as a punching bag?”

“A little bit of both.” Keith laughed under his breath and took his time taking the little violet bud from his ponytail, turning it in his hands and inspecting it thoroughly. “You are the closest thing I have to a friend.”

The admission threw Shiro out of the loop more than Kosmo’s sudden appearance had. He didn’t know what had put Keith in such a mood, he could only guess it had something to do with the anniversary, the remembrance of what was apparently a solemn day in Galra traditions.

“I just realized I have no idea what we’re celebrating,” Shiro said, giving Keith the chance to talk about something else and keep up their lighthearted bickering. He didn’t like to see Keith on edge or trying to make himself smaller. It was an uncommon sight Shiro didn’t care for at all.

It worked like a charm. Keith launched himself into the tale of his ancestors, gesturing wildly.

The evening went by faster than anticipated, at one point Krolia came to them and took Keith’s hand to make him dance around the bonfire for one song; Shiro had the opportunity to watch from the sidelines while Kosmo laid his snout on his lap.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And that's it for part one, I guess. I've been working on this fora long time now and part two is mostly complete, so it won't be a long time before I publish it (hopefully) and tie up the lose plot. The initial idea was to have it all out in one go but after the latest LM intreview it felt like the right time to put this out there. I love these characters a lot it's so much fun to write them and I can't wait to show you how the Paladins fit into this!  
> Feedback is always appreciated :D


	2. II - Loss

_ It was Keith’s first mission working directly under Kolivan and his mother, he ached to prove Kolivan that he could become a working agent, that he was capable of more than the officers gave him credit for. He was not just Krolia’s son, the smaller half-Galra everyone needed to protect. _

_ He took hold of his long braid, touching the knots with the tip of his fingers. Krolia had let his hair grow long, like ancient Galra traditions deemed proper, in a futile attempt to make him fit better with the other children, but Keith had always been too much: too short, too quick to grow up, too pale, too thin.  _

_ He was tired of trying to fit in, of pretending like he was somehow similar to his peers; it was a white lie his mother told him to make him sleep better at night, but he wasn’t a child anymore and he didn’t need stories to stop him from getting hurt. _

_ He took his blade, turning it in his hands as the black and blue became almost purple under his room’s faint lights. He put it at the very root of his braid and cut the hair just under the nape of his neck in one quick motion that left him with a weird, unregular mullet. _

_ Keith closed his suit’s mask and got ready to join the rest of the team. _

_ Kolivan, his mother and Thace were already stationed at the very end of the ship, ready to jump aboard the enemy cruiser without as much as a second thought. They were all wearing the ceremonial combat suit, lighter but incredibly easier to break through. _

_ For a moment, Keith was afraid for his mother’s faith, then he remembered the first lesson Kolivan had taught him: during a mission, he had to put his feelings aside. He gulped down the knot at the base of his throat. _

_ Kolivan gave the sign, the team moved in one quick motion, working like one single body. They embarched the ship and came face to face with a platoon of Galra robot soldiers, but those were easy to destroy: one single hit straight to the chest was enough to make them fall down. _

_ Once they managed to infiltrate the first row of command, Kolivan took half the squadron to deal with the assigned officers and Krolia led the other half of them down where mechanics and prisoners were usually kept. _

_ Keith followed his mother dutifully. She had made sure that he was left as one of the last lines of defense, so he didn’t have the chance to face many opponents as his fellow Blades had already cleared most of the path by the time he moved to a new location. _

_ He wanted to curse her for the unwanted attention, scream that he could handle what came at him, that the whole point of this mission was to prove that he didn’t need to be treated differently from everyone else. _

_ There would have been time for that, later, for the moment he needed to focus on the task at hand.  _

_ He stopped abruptly in front of what he supposed was once a door and was now a hole in the wall of the ship; on the other side, he could see an infinite row of cells harboring scared civilians either clinging to the cells’ bars or trying to dissolve themselves in the shadow, afraid of even being seen.  _

_ He heard his mother’s voice calling his name from some place behind him, once he turned around he saw her slice through a Galra soldier in purple and yellow uniform.  _

_ “There are prisoners down here, we need to rescue them,” he yelled, hoping his voice would reach her even through the comotion. Her coms didn’t seem to be working and Keith panicked when he realized. _

_ Trying to conceal his emotions was harder than he thought. _

_ Keith didn’t wait for a sign of confirmation, he threw himself through the wall and took out his gun to open the locks with a controlled blast through the mechanism which turned it to a mess of hot, liquid metal. The cages opened up one by one but the prisoners wouldn’t get out. _

_ He was almost at the end of the hall when he saw him: pale skin and grey eyes looking up at him from a face with traits too familiar to be a coincidence. Keith had never seen anyone like himself, not even remotely similar, but this one was clearly for a species born far away from their galaxy and he resembled Keith in all the ways that mattered. _

_ Keith backed up for a second, caught by surprise, but he remembered Kolivan’s mantra and opened up the cage anyway. He still had work to do. _

_ “Wait,” the prisoner called him. “I can help.” _

_ Keith sighed and turned around. He looked over the other person’s figure, but despite his heavy muscles and lean frame it was clear the time in captivity had caught up with him. He shook his head. _

_ “You can’t fight them, you’d be dead in minutes,” he stated. _

_ “At least I can try.” _

_ Keith rolled his eyes behind his mask. He was losing precious time talking to a prisoner who didn’t know his place in a battlefield, it made his blood boil and he had to constrict himself from punching the guy in the face so he would shut up; instead, he walked up to the prisoner and planted a finger to his chest.  _

_ “It’s my rescue mission now, I won’t let anyone get killed.” He stopped, making sure his point had been understood. “I found prisoners, extraction team at my location asap. We need to evacuate.” _

_ Once that was settled, Keith itched to go back to the real battle, but his teammates had already dealt with anyone who had tried to fight them, and the rest had managed to escape. It was a bloodbath, but they expected nothing less in a war.  _

_ When his mother called him over by his own name, instead of randomly selecting another recruit, Keith’s heart jumped out of his chest; he believed she wanted to give him a task, an important one, something to do with the people they had rescued. It would have been an honour, being able to guide people all around the galaxy, learning about other cultures. _

_ He had never been very social, but if he had the chance to know so much about the universe, he was willing to make an exception. There was also a possibility he could learn something valuable about the Empire with a few days alone among its prisoners. _

_ Krolia grinned when she saw him approaching. _

_ “I need you to take this human to Kolivan. He wants to enroll.” _

_ Immediately, Keith felt taken aback if not downright offended: how demeaning to be delegated as a babysitter for an overly grown baby who didn’t know his place.  _

_ He avoided the man’s best quality, choosing deliberately to focus on his stubbornness and overconfidence, even after the rookie had showed them his real intentions during the Trials. _

_ “He just wants to save his team, I think we can help him with that,” Krolia said, gesturing to his figure lying limp on the floor. _

_ Kolivan burrowed his brows. “Why do you care so much about him? Why this one?” _

_ Krolia looked at Keith while she answered, he could see how heavily the next words were weighting on his mother’s shoulders. “Because I know him.” _

_ Kolivan didn’t look for any further explanation, and the stern yet pleading look on Krolia’s face told Keith to do the same so he obeid.  _

_ Then the rookie became  _ Shiro  _ and they got around to talking, training, spending hours together. It was scary how easily Keith got used to having him by his side every day.  _

_ Shiro came from Earth, a planet in the Milky Way. Shiro was around twenty-three if his calculations were correct, he loved space, Japanese food and the feeling of wind on his face when he run away from his school on an overbike. _

_ (“What’s  _ Giapenese  _ food?” _

_ “Japanese,” Shiro corrected. “Japan is a country on Earth. It’s actually where my parents were from.” _

_ Keith’s eyes sparkled. “Have you ever seen it? Where your parents were from.” _

_ Shiro chuckled. “I’ve never been there but I saw some pictures. Pretty trees.” _

_ “I never saw where my dad was from either.”) _

_ He had never had a friend, not really, not one his age, not one who looked like him. He had certainly never had a friend who was kind, driven, stubborn just as much as him and - despite the predictable end of each one of their fights - fun to spar with. _

_ Not to mention the way Keith’s heart flipped when Shiro laughed at a stupid joke one of the people they ate with made, or when their shoulders bumped on their way back and forth from Shiro’s room. _

_ Keith had to remind himself their relationship was strictly professional and he didn’t like Shiro at all. He didn’t. If he did, it was a completely formal way. _

_ They could remain friends, at most. _

_ If they were friends he could stand a little more to the right when he sulked away from the festivities so he could spot the rookie’s figure when he sat far away from the band without making it creepy. _

_ Truthfully, a friend would be sitting next to Shiro, not far away rooted to the wall. _

_ Keith grimaced when he saw his mother walk up to him at the bonfire. She put a hand on his shoulder and kissed his forehead with a soft smile.  _

_ “You can work on that later, honey. I think there is someone who would like some company,” she suggested, pointing at Shiro’s figure. _

_ “Later, maybe,” he replied, far too tired to shrug or roll his eyes every time Krolia hinted at his budding crush he had yet to admit to himself, let alone her. _

_ “Alright,” she conceded. Krolia plucked a small flower growing at  her feet, she rolled it around her fingers and smiled faintly before arranging it in Keith’s ponytail; her son let her, gruning but quietly enjoying the small display of affection. _

_ She pinched his cheek the same way she used to when he was three, looked at him with a far too knowing gaze, and left. _

_ Keith waited for her to disappear from view until he got up to grab a drink. He needed liquid courage for what he was about to do. _

______

Shrio strapped up the last pieces of his suit, flexing his shoulders to make sure it was a good fit. He smiled to himself when he caught a glimpse of his reflection in the polished wall of the spaceship.

He had gained a newfound security in himself during his brief stay with the Blades, it had been almost two months and he was finally starting to recognize himself again.

He wasn’t the same person who had left Earth roughly a year before, but he had built his image back up from ashes, he had risen and shaped himself in the mold of a true soldier of the Blades. He was ready to make good of the second chance life had given him.

Behind Shiro, a group of five other operative Blades was waiting for their signal to launch.

It was an easy enough task: go down to the Galra ship, examine it as best as they could in a limited spun of time, asses if a rescue team was needed and, in that case, call for one. It was not different from the one where Keith had rescued him; the irony of the situation wasn’t lost on Shiro, especially when Keith’s voice rang in his ears, telling him and the others to go.

They put on their mask and jumped, landing in a fight stance at the inside of the cruiser, but they only found a large hangar full of destroyed robot guards and knocked out Galra soldiers. 

The robots’ chests were cut through from one side to the other, all of them had been deactivated with brute force, a messy combination of laser holes and smaller cuts that suggested an equally messy confrontation had gone down.

“There is still smoke coming out of the robots. Whoever attacked them could still be here,” Shiro observed, both for the people on his team and the officers listening through the coms. He crunched down next to a Galra soldier, checking his pulse. “They’re still breathing, just out cold.”

“If they’re against the Empire, they may be allies.” Krolia supplied on the other end of the line. 

An idea took form inside Shiro’s head, but he was reluctant to speak it out loud. They had given him control over the operation because he was the only one except for Keith to have had military and strategy training, but he had rarely exposed one of his ideas to Krolia and Kolivan, always choosing to use Keith as his spokesperson. 

He had to risk it, tough, hoping Keith would back him up, “Troops, go back to our ship.”

“Cadet, are you out of your mind?” Kolivan yelled. “You can’t be out there alone.”

“If they’re against the Empire then how do you think they’ll react when they see a bunch of armed Galras coming to them from the depth of one of Zarkon’s mother ships?” Shiro explained, turning to the rest of the troop to see how they would react.

It wasn’t easy to read them when their face were covered from the masks, but none of them stormed off on their own, which Shiro considered a good sign.

There was silence from all lines, until Keith’s voice announced, “Shiro’s right. They would shoot us immediately.”

“We would still have our masks on,” one of the people in Shiro’s team noted.

“Yeah, and what if they ask you to remove them so they can identify you? You refuse? They’ll surely trust us then,” Keith remarked, growing more serious and anxious by the second.

Shiro could hear Krolia’s voice in the distance saying something he couldn’t quite understand, to which Keith replied, “No, because I’m going down.”

In a matter of seconds, the team behind Shiro launched upward with their jet-packs, following Krolia’s orders to  _ move, move, we don’t have much time _ and a small figure descended, holding a familiar knife in his hand.

Keith wasted no time in going on with the operation, looking over the massacre around them. “We should leave before those people wake up,” he ordered, taking the lead and marching toward the inside of the ship.

Shiro followed dutifully, they walked around empty hallways until they heard sounds of commotion coming from a room to their right. Keith activated his blade and they plastered themselves on the wall right next to the room where four people in colorful armors were fighting against a tall Galra in the uniform typical of the Empire’s high officers.

Keith put a hand on Shiro’s chest to force him to stay hidden while they listened over the blast of cannons trying to eavesdrop something that would make them understand what was going on, but other than hearing panicked screeching and annoyed grunts they couldn’t make out any full sentences.

One thing was obvious, though: whoever those people who had decided to go against the Galra were, they didn’t have enough experience to be throwing themselves in such a life-threatening situation; everything from the hazardous way they had left marks and bruises over their opponents to the panic they were in while battling their enemy screamed that they needed help.

Keith was the first to dive head fist into the room, Shiro followed, lightening his Galra arm for defense. 

As soon as they walked inside, one of the intruders let out a scared yell, “More people to fight? Really?”

Keith huffed, sliding behind the Galra officer who had noticed their arrival thanks to the other man’s loudmouth. “We’re here to help you, dumbass!” he screamed.

The enemy was twice as taller as Kolivan, strong but slow. Keith grinned when he noticed the impediment, he could use it to his advantage.

“Shiro, up front,” he ordered, loud enough that Shiro could hear him over the coms.

Shiro obeyed, he run until he was face-to-face with their opponent, he was momentarily put off by the alien’s height, but he recovered soon enough when said alien threw a punch to the ground, forcing Shiro to move away so the hit landed right next to him. 

He felt the air move with the force of the Galra’s hand hitting hard metal and he gulped down on air before charging at his upper legs with all the strength in his prosthetic arm, hitting him straight on the thigh.

Keith took advantage of the distraction to jump up the console at his side, then he activated his jet-packs to land on the shoulders of the other Galra, legs on both sides of his neck, in order to headbutt him with the back of his blade so the alien would fall down face-fist on the floor. 

Keith jumped off while the Galra faltered, rolling away when he hit the pavement.

Shiro kicked him hard enough to render him unconscious, his foot was just big enough to cover one side of the Galra’s face but it did the job fairly well. Meanwhile, Keith got up and handcuffed the fallen enemy as quickly as he could.

The four armored soldiers they had caught sight of before remained still as they watched Shiro and Keith remove their masks to breathe better, Shiro swore he saw one of them open his mouth further when he saw their faces and for a moment he feared their plan to look less intimidating hadn’t worked.

“You’re human! What the hell are two humans doing in a spaceship?!” the one with a red symbol across his chest croaked, moving his hands back and forth.

“You’re the one who yelled before,” Keith remarked, pointing his blade at the man’s head, even though it was reduced to its smaller form Shiro barely refrained from face-palming.

“I- you came out of quiznacking nowhere!” The other continued to freak out until another one of his allies came forward and slapped his hand, this one’s uniform had specks of green but it was identical to the others so Shiro guessed they were part of the same team.

“Stop, Lance, you’re embarrassing,” the green one muttered. 

“Who are you?” Shiro asked, looking between the people in front of him. 

They were all humans, as far as he could see, apart from one of them who was wearing blue on her chest plate and had significant pink signs under her eyes, not to mention the pointed, elf-like ears that distinguished her from her partners.

The aforementioned woman stepped in front of the rest of her team, she carried herself with a certain air to her that resembled a military stance: straight shoulders, head high.

“We are the Paladins of Voltron, defenders of the universe. I am Princess Allura.” she declared.

Shiro was almost fascinated by her, Keith squared his own shoulders imperceptibly, almost as if he wanted to match the woman in height. “Some defenders you are,” he commented.

Shiro couldn’t refrain himself, “Keith,” he pleaded.

“What? They couldn’t even take out one enemy!”

“To be fair you caught us at the worst possible moment,” the one dressed in yellow noted, rising one finger to get the room’s attention. “We did defeat all those outside, you know.”

“Yes, I saw,” Keith said. “It was sloppy.”

“Sloppy? I’ll show you sloppy!” The red one started to move towards Keith who had already muttered, “ _ Bring it _ ,” ready to jump at the man’s throat if Shiro hadn’t laid a hand on his shoulder to stop him.

“Enough!” the Princess yelled, loud enough to make everyone else flinch back, Keith only crossed his hands in front of his chest.

“Alright,” Keith sighed. 

Shiro noticed that he was trying to control his temper, so he let go of Keith’s shoulder with one last squeeze.

“We’re with the Blades of Marmora, resistance against Zarkon’s empire,” Shiro supplied. “This is Keith, I’m Shiro.”

“Shiro?” the green paladin repeated in awe. “Like, Takashi Shirogane, Garrison’s best and brightest?”

Shiro stepped back when he heard his old school’s name. For a moment, he didn’t know how to answer, and yet he should have been prepared to be recognized the moment he had seen they were humans, too; the Kerberos launch had been heavily advertised, the whole world knew about them and what they planned to do.

“Oh my God! I thought I recognized you, but I didn’t want to hope. You changed a lot!” the paladin started to ramble, getting uncomfortably close. Even if he only reached Shiro’s chest, he still felt cornered.

He could see the red paladin gushing in awe as he mouthed, “ _ That’s Shiro!” _ to his friend in yellow.

“Wh- who are you?” 

The green paladin seemed to remember himself because he stepped back, cleaned his throat, and pointed to his chest, “I’m Pidge, the one that’s hyperventilating is Lance and the quiet one is Hunk.”

Keith looked uncomfortable in the situation for some reason; Shiro had never seen him squirm but there was no other word to explain what he was doing in that moment. 

“You said you were a princess. Of what?” Keith asked, moving the attention away from Shiro.

The princess - Allura, Shiro remembered - seemed to recoil within herself at the question, she needed a moment to recollect herself and answer, “I’m the princess of Altea.”

That meant absolutely nothing to Shiro, but Keith looked like he knew the name because he immediately changed expression. He looked like he had just seen a ghost.

“That’s impossible,” Keith whispered. “Altea was destroyed ten thousand years ago. There is nothing left.”

Shiro frowned looking at the people in front of him, he was reluctant to believe them after the newly learned notion.

“We have much to talk about, but not here,” she supplied.

“We can’t leave, we’re here on a rescue mission,” Keith explained vaguely.

“There are no prisoners here,” Pidge assured them. “I checked.”

“And we’re supposed to trust you?” Keith asked rhetorically.

Pidge took a deep breath, he rid himself of his helmet. “I’m looking for Sam Holt, he was my teacher. I know he didn’t die in the Kerberos Mission and I want to prove it,” he said, looking directly at Shiro with serious eyes. “Sam talked a lot about you, Matt, too.” He smiled sadly when he added, “He was so proud of you both for going to Space, never shut up about it.”

Shiro saw how honest the boy was, if he looked closely he could see some resemblance to Sam himself in the way Pidge moved his face and the shape of his eyes. He told himself he was hallucinating: Matt didn’t have a younger brother, he was seeing what he wanted to see.

There was no denying, though, that Pidge had taken his mannerism from the Holts which could have only happened if they had spent time together, enough to justify his story.

“Lead the way, we’ll talk,” Shiro agreed. 

_____

They had done a quick inspection of the base just in case, Pidge had frown over the way Keith had ordered his team to come back one more time, offended at the little trust put in them. 

Ultimately, they decided to take the assemble into one of their Lions since, apparently, Paladins of Voltron controlled huge robot animals which sent Keith into a silent spiral that only Shiro was able to notice. He really wanted to pilot one of those, he could feel it from the way his friend was radiating nervous energy next to him.

“You said it only answers to you?”

“Yes,” Hunk nodded for the second time in as many minutes.

“Red is the fastest,” Pidge teased.

“Cool.” Keith’s eyes were literally shining.

“Back off my lion, Mullet,” Lance threatened.

“Or what?”

Allura butted in, pushing Lance out of the way. “Let’s get in, the yellow lion is the largest. It will do.”

They talked for a while about the way Hunk, Pidge and Lance had left the Garrison, how Lance stumbled inside the blue lion’s cave while they were trekking through the desert and the equally casual way they had marched inside Allura’s palace.

She told them about Altea, the tragedy that struck ten thousand years prior, how Zarkon killed her father in cold blood betraying his trust and upsetting the universe’s whole balance; how she was alone now, except for her trusted counselor, how they had to defeat the Empire, without forgetting to save every planet they could in the process.

To do that, Allura explained, they needed allies. The plan was to form a coalition that would fight alongside Voltron, they would have loved to talk with the Blades and arrange some kind of collaboration.

“I only have one question, Princess,” Shiro inquired. Keith had left him to handle politics and such, since he was the one less inclined to offend a possible ally in their war against Zarkon and the one who hadn’t been scolding in Lance’s direction ever since they had met about half an hour prior. 

“Do tell,” she said.

“From what I understand, Voltron is a weapon formed by five lions.”

“That’s right,” she confirmed.

“But I only see four of you here.”

She looked sheepish for a moment, however she regained her regal stance immediately so her slip up was almost invisible. 

“Well yes, we were actually looking for the Black Paladin when you came to our rescue. We followed the string of quintessence and it lead us to you,” she explained.

“You are still looking for one of the Paladins? How long have you scratched by like this?” Keith inquired, arm tied in front of his chest as a frown formed even deeper on his forehead.

“We’ve actually only been Paladins for about an hour,” Hunk admitted.

“An hour?” Keith stressed, stifling back a laugh. 

“Hunk,” Lance complained loudly.

“One hour and fifteen minutes if you count the trip from Earth to Aurus.”

“Well, that's rich,” Keith said, laying back in his sit with a grin.

“You mentioned quintessence, Princess. Can you explain what that is?” Shiro was growing tired of hearing words he didn’t understand; it had happened several times since the conversation had begun, it made him feel unprepared and ignorant.

“It’s like the vital energy of every being, the source of life,” Keith explained easily. It was the first time he talked about something important ever since they stepped inside the Lion, the mere mention of quintessence had apparently been enough to make him engage in the conversation.

Shiro saved up that information for later.

“That’s… impressive,” he commented for lack of a better idea. He was still a bit shocked to know alien races had discovered the source of life itself. “So what does it mean that it led to us?”

“Not you two.  _ You _ , Shiro. You are meant to be the Black Paladin, the leader of Voltron. You are the one who’s going to guide us to victory,” Allura clarified.

“What? Me?” Shiro stuttered.

Keith tensed beside him, losing his bravado.

“Yes. You must come with me to the palace, there is so much I have to show you and we need to train so you can strengthen the bond with your Lion.” She launched in an endless rant about all the thing they absolutely had to do as soon as possible.

Keith closed his eyes, squinting until he saw spots of light behind his eyelids. He got up and left, going outside the ship to get his bearings.

Shiro noticed immediately, as did the rest of the room, Allura even stopped talking to stare at Keith's empty seat for a few seconds.

“Sorry, we'll be back in a second,” Shiro clarified when he got up as well to reach his friend.

Keith was pacing around on the main deck where the Lions were stationed, moving around in a circle while stomping his feet on the hard floor as to create a deaf sound that echoed in the huge silent space.

“You’re gonna drill a hole in the floor if you keep that up, you know?” Shiro mentioned, his arms crossed in front of his chest and a false smile on his lips to make the situation less grave than it actually was.

Keith huffed but kept on moving, ignoring his friend’s attempt at a witty remark.

“Keith, can you stop for just a second. Please?” Shiro took Keith’s arm, physically stopping him from waltzing around in circles. 

Instead of answering with an equally physical reaction - a shove, a quick maneuver to get rid of Shiro’s hand - as he had predicted, Keith looked at him with glossy eyes and barked back, “I stopped. What do you want?”

Keith lowered his gaze to the ground, eyes still brimming with tears. Shiro let go of his arm, trying to read his friend’s emotions through the little he could see of his face. “I thought we were past this,” he said, unable to stop his tongue from forming the words echoing in his head.

“Past what?” Keith whispered. He used his newly free arm to wipe away the tears on his face, trying and failing to be more subtle.

Shiro gulped down on empty air. He was about to answer, say something about them having gone past the moment where Keith pretended to not care about Shiro and Shiro pretended it didn’t hurt him to see it, but then Allura came out of the yellow lion stepping quickly in their direction.

“I don’t mean to be a pest, but we must know your answer, Shiro. Will you come with us or not?”

Shiro looked at Keith out of the corner of his eyes, seeing him so focused on his answer and his shoulders tense up in anticipation gave him the security to make his next move.

“I will come to your Lion.” He took a moment to lay a hand on Keith’s shoulder, guiding him to his side. “If Keith can come with me and make sure nothing happens to me.” He took one long look at his friend, trying to gauge his reaction.

They both knew Shiro could take care of himself, having to pretend otherwise was nothing less of an excuse. 

Keith nodded.

Allura smiled, pleased, before she directed them inside the Yellow Lion once again. As soon as the thrusters were activated, Keith opened up his coms to the confused mumbling of his mother.

“Keith, everything okay?” The subtle anxiety in her voice made him feel guilty for being unavailable for so long. 

“Yeah, we--” he glanced sideways at Shiro who had his head bent toward the console as Hunk explained the basics of the machine’s inner workings. The sight made him mourn a friendship that wasn’t yet lost but he felt was dropping from his grasp like water.

It didn’t matter how much Keith tried to hold onto Shiro, he should have always known Shiro wasn’t supposed to be a part of his word and he blamed himself for pretending it could be any different.

He realized, in the small hangar of a ship he didn’t know surrounded by strangers who he didn’t trust, heading in an unsafe direction all to grant Shiro his wishes, staring at his friend as he chucked for something Hunk had said, that he would have gladly laid all the stars in the universe at Shiro’s feet and it still wouldn’t have been enough to make him stay.

The knowledge hit him so hard he lost his balance along with his train of thoughts, almost falling on his back as the Lion made a sharp turn to avoid a meteor.

“Sorry, sorry. Still learning here,” was Hunk’s muttered apology.

“We’re going somewhere, it will take us time.” Keith explained over the speaker, dreading his mother’s reprisal.

For a few seconds there was silence, then loud voices yelled at the same time in Galran, the spoken sentences became blurs, fusing in a unique yell of disapproval.

Kolivan was the first to get near the microphone and take over the situation. “Are you insane, Keith? Leaving the premise without a word?”

“Look, there is a good explanation, just… trust me on this?”

The tension on the other end was palpable, everyone had fallen silent and he could imagine clearly the way Kolivan and his mother were communicating silently through glances and facial expressions.

He thought they were about to send a ship his way to recover them, he was ready to fight tooth and nail to have permission to undergo this mission; everything to cling at Shiro’s presence a little bit longer, but he didn’t need to.

“Alright, Soldier. But if we don’t hear from you in five doboshes we’re going to follow the tracker in your suit and bring you both back, understood?”

“Yessir,” he sighed, closing the call.

He made his way to Shiro’s side. “I spoke to the Command, we’re good to go.”

“A little late to ask permission,” Shiro smiled, his eyes were lit with wonder as he watched out of the Lion into the infinite universe. He spared a grin in Keith’s direction and slapped one hand on his shoulder, making him waver on his feet.

“We’re in space,” Shiro said, his voice so far off it was hard to hear.

“Yeah, we are.” Keith supplied, smiling despite himself. Shiro’s happiness was contagious, it reflected off of him like a beacon of light and he wanted to bask in it as long as possible.

They reached Aurus in record time, Keith was baffled by the speed at which they had traveled and a small part of him itched to get his hand on the Red Lion, the one that was said to be the fastest, just to feel a flicker of what it meant to fly quicker than light or sound ever could. 

He was deeply annoyed that the one chosen to experience such a feat was a guy as annoying and as incapable as Lance, the same Paladin who had been talking Shiro’s head off ever since they had landed.

He decided right then that he didn’t like Lance.

They were introduced to the Princess’ eccentric right-hand man, Coran, an Altean who had more years on his shoulders than all of them combined but acted like he was still a young boy. 

His bright colored eyes and marks that shone a light blue made Keith uneasy, especially when he put a hand around his shoulder saying how Keith reminded him of someone but he didn’t quite understand who.

He hoped silently no one would catch his Galra heritage, not around people who had been betrayed and suffered greatly at Zarkon’s hand. 

If their story was to be believed, Princess Allura’s grudge against the Empire run deeper than everyone else’s and Keith didn’t want to see what her fury looked like, even if she was inexperienced in combat.  

Coran then tried to learn their names but when that failed he announced they would be part of the system he had invented for the rest of the Paladins so he baptized Shiro “Number One” and Keith “Number Three” which made Lance throw a fit.

“So I’m Number Four now? Unfair, he’s not taller than me!”

Keith rolled his eyes.

“Calm down, Number Four. It’s just temporary.”

“Yeah, I’m not a Paladin, genius. I will leave as soon as this is over.”

Saying it out loud, mentioning himself as a single person without including Shiro, made him feel like ha had a spear stuck in his chest.

They moved on deep inside the Castle.

“And that’s the hanger where your Lion is. Are you excited?” Lance asked, talking so quickly Shiro had troubles understanding him.

“I guess?” 

“Awesome! The Princess can open it, right?”

Allura nodded, she took a step forward and the doors opened without any effort on her part.

If Keith and Shiro thought the Yellow Lion was big, they had to rethink about their beliefs once they saw how enormous the black one was. 

Shiro walked to the Lion as if drawn by it, even Keith could feel a stifle sensation at the back of his head but he could only imagine what was leading Shiro on was way stronger.

The ship was surrounded by a violet force barrier not different from the ones they used in the Blades’ base where Keith had grown up. As soon as Shiro put a hand on it, it dissipated as if it was mere dust kept up by an invisible force.

Shiro had his eyes closed, he inhaled sharply and remained immobile for a long time. When he opened his eyes again, he looked back at Keith over his shoulders for confirmation.

Thus far, nothing of the story the Paladins had told seemed to be made up, so Keith had little reasons to deny his friend the comfort he looked for. He nodded encouragingly, his arms closed in front of his chest to raise his own barrier against the pain he was about to feel if Shiro resulted to be really the universe’s only hope.

Keith knew he was too noble to refuse such a role.

“What do I do now?” Shiro asked, looking up.

Before anyone could answer, the Lion’s eyes started to glow brightly, it moved until it stood up on all fours and roared so loudly the Caste shook with the sound.

Shiro chuckled when the beast crawled on its front paws to lay its open mouth on the ground and open its jaw so Shiro could get inside.

Keith run to the Lion as did the rest of the Paladins. 

Allura was smiling.

They were all basking in the new discovery when Coran stumbled inside the room, making everyone turn toward the exit. “Oh, I see Number One has worked out how to talk to his Lion.”

“Yes, I can feel the connection. This… this is amazing,” Shiro announced, starstruck.

“Good, good. Is there any chance you figured out how to form Voltron, too?” 

“Don’t be silly, Coran,” the Princess supplied, “We still have a lot of work to do, Shiro still hasn’t even gotten inside.”

“Well, we have a bit of a problem you see…” Another quake shook the ship but it wasn’t coming from the Lions. “A Galra ship has reached us. Now.”

“What? How did they manage to find us?” Pidge asked, he was trembling slightly. 

“That’s not important now, we need to get to our Lions,” Shiro ordered, his eyes flaming and his posture straight. Gone was his childlike wonder, now Keith could only see the military general he had been on Earth.

In a matter of seconds everyone was gone, reaching for their ships with quick steps, moved by sheer anxious energy.

Shiro took a moment to get closer to Keith, he grabbed his arm with his good hand and looked straight in his eyes, a bit of his severe demeanor melting away at noticing the subtle desperation mixed with anguish etched on his face.

“I’ll be back, and then we can talk,” Shiro said.

Keith took a deep breath, he managed a small smile and covered Shiro’s hand with his own. “Okay. Be careful.”

He watched as Shiro run to his Lion, turning it on and making it move in a few seconds, as if he had done it a million times already. The door to the hangar opened behind it and Black flew out of the Castle and into the open sky.

Keith turned around with a tear at the edge of his eyes that he carefully dried with the sleeve of his uniform, finding Coran’s knowing gaze waiting for him.

“Come on,” the Altean gestured with his hand for Keith to follow him, his voice uncharacteristically gentle and low, “We can help them from the main deck.”

Keith nodded, straightened his back and moved as fast as he could.

_____

The robobeast they were fighting against was a massive creature that moved on two legs, even Black was dwarfed when put close to it and Shiro felt the nape of his neck cover itself in sweat the more they tried and failed to hit it, causing only minor damage even with their most powerful blasts.

He knew what they needed to do, felt it on the tip of his fingertips, except he didn’t know how.

Everything else had come as easily as breathing, from sitting down to flying away to the edge of the plant’s atmosphere. He had barely had time to understand the fact that he was indeed in a foreign planet which had atmosphere in the first place, let alone comprehend what his ability to fly Black implied for his future.

He didn’t even want to think about leaving Keith behind, so he tried to focus on the good things for the moment, although it was really hard when he was getting trashed back and forth.

“What do we do? Shiro, you’re the leader.” Lance’s voice echoed through the hangar, Shiro could feel the heavy responsibility on his shoulder grow heavier by the second.  

Three kids depended on him, if they got hurt it was entirely his fault. He needed to think and do it fast. 

Their only chance was forming Voltron.

_____

From the Castle’s main deck, Keith had nothing to do but stare at the commotion before him. 

Coran had activated the shields to protect the main ship, but nothing could be used to deflect the attacks launched at the Lions, especially not when there were five of them all scattered around. 

Coran couldn’t even keep his eyes on all of them, Keith was focused solely on Black as it moved closest to their enemy. Half of his brain was worried for Shiro’s life, the other half wanted to scream at him for his selflessness that put him in the most difficult situations.

After all, Keith supplied to himself, it was part of the reason why he had fallen in love with him in the last months.

He didn’t know when it had happened, but it was the first time he allowed himself to admit it, even if it wasn’t out loud. Maybe it had been because of the easiness between them, the natural way they circled around each other every time they were in a room together even when Keith had pretended to be annoyed by Shiro’s presence.

At the same time Keith knew he would keep his secret with him forever if it meant letting Shiro become leader of the Defender of the Universe.

Shiro was meant for great things, because he was the best person Keith had ever known and it was obvious that he had to do more than rot away in the cell they had found him in. He deserved more.

He just hoped Shiro could live long enough to actually fulfill his destiny.

Right when the thought crossed his mind a strong blast hit Black’s back at close range and the Lion stumbled backward into the ground, rolling on itself.

Keith gripped the railing until his knuckles turned white, moving toward the large window as if he could teleport himself between the robobeast and Black using only his will.

Coran groaned in frustration, he let go of the commands. “Without the Princess I can’t do anything from here. We’re helpless.”

Keith couldn’t take his gaze away from Black’s lifeless form, its eyes had turned down: it wasn’t responding.

“Come on,” Keith muttered. “Get up, I  _ need _ him.” 

Keith watched, powerless, as the robobeast moved slowly toward Black’s ameless form while the other Paladins tried to delay it by hitting it with whatever they had, but the robobeast ignored them. 

It looked like it wanted Black and only Black.

_____

Shiro tried to move the sticks, he hit every button in front of him, but nothing worked, not even his coms. He was stranded and alone, unable to see what was happening in front of him.

Clueless, with nothing but the increasing shaking of the ground beneath him to understand how close the robobeast was, Shiro was about to lose all hope.

His thoughts went to Sam and Matt, he wondered if they felt as cornered as him, laying limp in an alien ship waiting for their doom; he remembered his own imprisonment and how easy it had been to wish for death. 

Then he thought about Keith’s face, pained as he watched him leave without the possibility to go with him.

Ever since they had known each other, even if it was just a few months, they had never fought alone and Shiro felt there was a silent oath between them about taking care of the other when they were in danger.

He could only imagine what was going on in Keith’s brain as he watched Shiro give up so easily. In another circumstance he would have smirked, shaken his head and offered him a hand to help him get up.

(“You need to toughen up, Rookie. It takes too little to put you down.”

“I only surrender because we’re training, I would never do it in combat.”

“I hope you can prove it to me someday.”)

The thought of leaving him alone, of disappointing him so thoroughly, the mental image of his suffering so clear in his mind were enough to will him into trying one last time.

For Keith.

Shiro closed his eyes, he focused all his energy on Black, on the faint humming at the back of his head that had lead his actions up to that point, until all he heard around him was a buzzing sound and all he saw in front of him was a glowing purple light.

His senses got taken over by a feeling he couldn’t put into words, so strong it made his whole being shake from the inside.

He opened his eyes along Black, feeling her every movement in his body as he got up and roared against the robobeast which was about to lay its hand on her.

Black took flight, high above their enemy’s head, and as his coms activated again the hangar resounded of the other Paladins’ happy cheering. Shiro smiled, satisfied.

“Guys, let’s fly in formation. I know what to do.”

_____

“Coran, is that…?” Keith watched through his blurry vision as the Lions flew upwards, glowing in their respective colors and leaving behind a trail of pure quintessence.

“They did it,” Coran confirmed, joining Keith at the edge of the deck. “They formed Voltron.”

A massive robot landed on Aurus a few seconds later, taller than the robobeast and far more threatening. It had the shape of a soldier in full armor and the colors matched those of the five Lions, it stood between the Castle and their enemy and it wasted no time in charging ahead until it hit the robobeast with a strong punch.

The other mecha tried to him back, but Voltron blocked its hit with one hand and used a leg to make it fall down.

Voltron then used its arm to tear through the robobeast’s chest where its main weapon was in order to take it out and toss it far away, leaving behind a hole of naked tubes.

The robobeast shut down, leaving Voltron standing alone in the open desert.

Keith breathed deeply. Voltron had won, but he had lost Shiro in the process. 

_____

The Paladins came back triumphant, smiling brightly. 

Pidge jumped up and down declaring, “We did it! I can’t believe we did it!” 

Hunk and Lance followed not far behind, slapping each other on the back. The three of them walked toward Coran who looked at them proudly.

Allura had her helm under one arm, she let her hair down and exhaled loudly, watching the rest of the crew as they celebrated with a fond tilt of her head. 

Shiro was the last to arrive, a hand behind his neck. 

He walked slowly until he was right in front of Keith who was trying to be as stern as possible, but the content feeling in his chest was too strong and he couldn’t force down his smirk for too long even though he kept his arms folded in front of his chest.

Despite everything, he was proud of Shiro.

“You did it,” he stated, his head high so he could look Shiro in the eyes.

“I think I did,” Shiro answered. 

He glanced at his side and saw everyone watching them like hawks, all chatter had ended when Coran had noticed the smallest breath of distance left between them and had directed his attention their way, swaying everyone else, too.

As soon as Keith realized how close they were really standing, once Shiro’s head turned and made the air around him shift with the movement, he took a step back hoping no one would notice.

It didn’t do much good, but he could tell himself he had tried to move away.

“Can you give us a moment, please?” Shiro asked. He tried to be gentle, but there was still the slightest end of his commanding voice which - now that they weren’t about to die - made even Keith shiver.

Everyone scrambled to leave the room, pushing one another and muttering about something or the other they had to do elsewhere.

“So,” Shiro said, clearing his throat.

“How was it?” Keith interrupted him, dancing on the balls of his feet. His tone betrayed the childlike curiosity in his smile. “How did it feel?”

“It’s unbelievable, Keith. I feel her, here,” he explained touching his temple. 

“Her?”

Shiro nodded. “She told me what to do, not in so many words but I knew.”

“How did you get her to work again?”

Shiro took a deep breath, but it got caught in his throat. 

Looking at Keith so close, at his endless eagerness, the little spots around his eyes red and swollen because he had been too harsh in wiping away his tears, it became clear why thinking of their training had given him the right peace of mind to connect with Black.

“I thought about you,” Shiro said, right when the thought crossed his mind. 

Keith was left speechless, his mouth half open. He tried to snoop around in his brain for the right answer, but he came up blank.

“Keith, I need to tell you something.” Shiro took a step forward, he raised his hand to take a hold of Keith’s but the other man moved away, hiding his hands behind his back in a military stance. 

“I think I’m falling in love with you,” Shiro whispered in the space between them, treating the revelation like the precious thing it was.

Keith didn’t answer.

“Say something?” Shiro pleaded.

“I guess you’ll have much training to do here,” Keith supplied, his voice was shaking but he kept his posture. “Allura probably has a room for you already, team leader.”

Somehow, he managed to make it sound like an insult.

They were running on borrowed time, they had both known ever since Shiro had activated the Black Lion, so Keith didn’t permit himself to fall into Shiro’s touch, even if he wanted it more than anything.

“We don’t need to say goodbye,” Shiro noticed, picking up on what Keith wasn’t saying. “We can still see each other, and we’re working for the same cause. I’m sure the Blades would like an ally against Zarkon.” 

Shiro didn’t deny his intentions of staying with the Paladins, just as Keith had expected. 

In the blink of an eye, the dream of saving Shiro’s team and spending their life traveling between the stars faded from Keith’s mind leaving behind a strong, bitter taste in his mouth that he tried to hide behind a tranquil façade.

Keith nodded. “Yes, I’m sure we can help,” he said blankly.

“Keith, please you don’t need to do this.”

Keith smiled warmly even as his eyes glistened with unshed tears, trying to reassure his friend. 

He didn’t know why he was so emotional, it was probably due to the rollercoaster that he had been riding on ever since the moment he got up from bed. 

“It’s okay, I knew you wouldn’t stay. It was stupid of me to believe it.”

“We will still see each other,” Shiro repeated.

“Sure, once in a while for missions or briefings.”

It had been a long day, it would have been so easy to let himself rest for a few seconds, to let Shiro say what he wanted to say and relish in the illusion that they could act on what was going on between them, but he knew that doing it meant hurting the both of them more than necessary, so he opened his coms.

“Mom, are you there?”

It took a few seconds for Krolia to answer.

“Yes, Keith. Is everything okay?” 

“Yeah,” Keith lied, swallowing down the lump in his throat. “I need to get home, can you send me a ship?”

“I’m already on my way, I’ll be there in a few ticks. Make yourself visible.” 

Keith snorted at his mother’s antics, but answered anyway, “Copy. Out.”

Shiro frowned. “So this is it? You leave and we see each other sometimes for missions.” He sounded angry, almost disappointed. 

Keith couldn’t deal with it anymore, he had tried to keep calm but Shiro’s rage was laughable considering he was the one trying to keep the situation from falling apart, so he snapped. 

“What would you have us do, then? Fight because we’re in two different galaxies until we resent each other so much we can’t bear to be in the same room? Waking up every day knowing we can’t really  _ be  _ together?” he cried out, his voice unsteady as he brought his hands to his side so he could close them in strong fists.

“That’s not--” Shiro started, but Keith didn’t want to hear it.

“You shouldn’t have said anything.” he said, voice growing steadily lower with each sentence. “I would have moved on, I would have forgotten you,” he lied. 

Shiro wanted to say so many things, but they all felt wrong somehow, incredibly inappropriate when Keith was standing in front of him, face red and cheeks damp with tears.

He forced himself to walk forward until he could wrap his arms around Keith, keeping him close even as he used his hands to punch Shiro in the chest until he grew tired and opted to lay his head on Shiro’s shoulder, breathing deeply.

“I’m sorry,” Shiro said.

“Me, too,” Keith answered.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ugh I hate myself why do I have to make things LONGER than they should be  
> Just fyi this was supposed to be the end ?? kind of ??? But in my defense i pictured it way more bittersweet and less..... this i guess 
> 
> Yikes
> 
> Thanks everyone for the positive feedback I've been working on it for a long time so it's nice to see people enjoy my story ~

**Author's Note:**

> And that's it for part one, I guess. I've been working on this fora long time now and part two is mostly complete, so it won't be a long time before I publish it (hopefully) and tie up the lose plot. The initial idea was to have it all out in one go but after the latest LM intreview it felt like the right time to put this out there. I love these characters a lot it's so much fun to write them and I can't wait to show you how the Paladins fit into this!  
> Feedback is always appreciated :D


End file.
